-LRB- WIRED -RRB- -- It 's too late to stop WikiLeaks from publishing thousands more classified documents , nabbed from the Pentagon 's secret network .

But the U.S. military is telling its troops to stop using CDs , DVDs , thumb drives and every other form of removable media -- or risk a court martial .

Maj. Gen. Richard Webber , commander of Air Force Network Operations , issued the December 3 `` Cyber Control Order '' -- obtained by Danger Room -- which directs airmen to `` immediately cease use of removable media on all systems , servers , and stand alone machines residing on SIPRNET , '' the Defense Department 's secret network .

Similar directives have gone out to the military 's other branches .

`` Unauthorized data transfers routinely occur on classified networks using removable media and are a method the insider threat uses to exploit classified information . To mitigate the activity , all Air Force organizations must immediately suspend all SIPRNET data transfer activities on removable media , '' the order adds .

It 's one of a number of moves the Defense Department is making to prevent further disclosures of secret information in the wake of the WikiLeaks document dumps .

Pfc. Bradley Manning says he downloaded hundreds of thousands of files from SIPRNET to a CD marked `` Lady Gaga '' before giving the files to WikiLeaks .

To stop that from happening again , an August internal review suggested that the Pentagon disable all classified computers ' ability to write to removable media .

About 60 percent of military machines are now connected to a Host Based Security System , which looks for anomalous behavior . And now there 's this disk-banning order .

One military source who works on these networks says it will make the job harder ; classified computers are often disconnected from the network , or are in low-bandwidth areas .

A DVD or a thumb drive is often the easiest way to get information from one machine to the next . `` They were asking us to build homes before , '' the source says . `` Now they 're taking away our hammers . ''

The order acknowledges that the ban will make life trickier for some troops .

`` Users will experience difficulty with transferring data for operational needs which could impede timeliness on mission execution , '' the document admits . But `` military personnel who do not comply ... may be punished under Article 92 of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice . ''

Article 92 is the armed forces ' regulation covering failure to obey orders and dereliction of duty , and it stipulates that violators `` shall be punished as a court-martial may direct . ''

But to several Defense Department insiders , the steps taken so far to prevent another big secret data dump have been surprisingly small . `` After all the churn ... . The general perception is business as usual . I 'm not kidding , '' one of those insiders says . `` We have n't turned a brain cell on it . ''

Tape and disk backups , as well as hard drive removals , will continue as normal in the military 's Secure Compartmented Information Facilities , where top-secret information is discussed and handled . And removable drives have been banned on SIPRNET before .

Two years ago , the Pentagon forbade the media 's use after the drives and disks helped spread a relatively unsophisticated worm onto hundreds of thousands of computers .

The ban was lifted this February , after the worm cleanup effort , dubbed `` Operational Buckshot Yankee , '' was finally completed . Shortly thereafter , Manning says he started passing information to WikiLeaks .

Specialists at the National Security Agency are looking for additional technical ways to limit , disable or audit military users ' actions .

Darpa , the Pentagon 's leading-edge research arm , has launched an effort to `` greatly increase the accuracy , rate and speed with which insider threats are detected ... within government and military interest networks . ''

But , like all Darpa projects , this one wo n't be ready to deploy for years -- if ever . For now , the Pentagon is stuck with more conventional methods to WikiLeak-proof its networks .

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U.S. military is telling its troops to stop using CDs , DVDs , thumb drives

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Defense Department making moves to prevent disclosures of secret info

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One military source who works on these networks says it will make the job harder